# How did you get into pipe smoking?



## Fuzzface (Nov 17, 2010)

I love hearing stories like these..

For me, my fathers friend has always smoked Captain Black White in a cob. The smell, well most people know it here. I always loved it and still do. When i was 18 i got a cigar and loved it.

One day i was at my uncles and he had some pipe tobacco. So he gave me a pipe and we smoked some Captain Black Cherry. I then bought some CBW and a cob and smoked that... Its been a match made in heaven ever since.


----------



## Er999 (May 31, 2013)

As for me I got started when I was unsatisfied with the taste of cigarettes (never inhaled them) and was looking for something better, I liked the idea of pipe smoking, gave it a shot and now I'm here. p


----------



## Emperor Zurg (May 6, 2013)

I was falling asleep, not seeing deer in a deer blind. I needed SOMETHING to occupy my hands and my mind to keep me awake and a pipe seemed a big enough pain-in-the-ass thing to smoke to do just that. Not only that but smoke is a good cover scent (dunno about tobacco smoke but what the heck, why not) not only that, but I've always loved the smell of pipe smoke. So the long and the short of it is I got a cheap Dr Grabow and some Captain Black something or other and, knowing NOTHING about how to smoke a pipe, proceeded to give myself tongue bite for the rest of deer season.


----------



## BigBehr (Apr 29, 2011)

Stonedog Bombed me.... What a A$$HOLE.... HAHAHA I now have about 8 pounds cellared and 25 pipes.


----------



## Chris0673 (Aug 20, 2012)

I was in Afghanistan and needed something to quiet my anxiety. Smoking the pipe kept my mind off the current situation and allowed me some much needed relaxation. Now that I'm home I'm finding I still yearn for that hour of relaxation. It helps get me going in the morning and helps calm me down after a rough day.


----------



## CaptainKoala (Jul 2, 2013)

Always thought it looked kind of relaxing. And I've always enjoyed the smell of cigarette smoke for some kind of reason. Pipe tobacco had a VERY pleasant smell, more so than cigarettes. Also, being an introvert musician who also likes to write (short stories and such), pipe smoking seemed like a great idea! I've been puffing for about two months now, and I really enjoy it.


----------



## laloin (Jun 29, 2010)

Think I was surfing youtube for videos on pipes for some odd reason. Ran across Dublinthedane blogs, and it perked my interested. Ran out the next day bought a cob, one of those Sav starter kits, with a full bent billard, pipe tool, a few pipe cleaners, and some of those odd bamboo thingees. Which I never figured out how to use. bought a bag of terriable house blend auro, and a bag of LTF. 
Discovered this site not too long after I bought the pipe, signed up for the Newbie pipe trade, and discovered what really good Virginias, Va/pers were bout, when RJPuff properly bombed me to hell and back.
Fast forward 3 yrs later, now have 10 pipes, and bout 20 some odd lbs of tobacco in my celler. it's a steep slope to get pushed off of


----------



## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

It was during summer vacation between my junior and senior year of high school, back in 1974. My cousin and his friend invited me and my other cousin (the first cousin's younger brother) to go with them to a B&M, about fifty miles away from our small town. I decided on the spot that pipes were cool, and ended up buying a Jobey billiard and some tobacco (don't remember what; I remember a Mac Baren tin, and Flying Dutchman was either this trip or the next), and for some reason a pack of Balkan Sobrainie Black Russians. I enjoyed it somewhat, though tongue bite (as you can guess from those tobaccos) was a problem. I got into it a little deeper when I graduated and moved to the SF Bay area (Treasure Island; Dad was in the Navy still) and discovered that shop on Market Street (don't remember the name). Though to be honest, I never had more than three pipes (the Jobey, a GBD bent bulldog, and a Pioneer Calabash) and measured tins by the month, not by the week. Due to a traumatic event involving a college dorm room, alcohol, and the Pioneer calabash, I quit with the pipes.

Five or six years ago, I started 'missing' smoking, and I couldn't figure out why. By this time I associated smoking with cigarettes and had only negative feelings about the matter. Then in 2009, I saw a Missouri Meerschaum in a local store and the light came on.


----------



## Squints (Apr 29, 2013)

At age 16 i fell in love with cigars, and smoked every once in a while with my father, uncle, and cousin. At 18 i began smoking more on my own, and increased even more at college. During my freshman year, i found my schools pipe and cigar club, and a member allowed me to try pipe tobacco. At that time i did not really enjoy it. As it became closer to summer, cigars began to get heavy and i wanted something lighter, shorter, and something with more control. I smoked my pipe a few times, but really started to get into it last february.


----------



## Jeff10236 (Nov 21, 2010)

When I was three my parents bought my grandfather a pipe and some pipe tobacco to try to get him to transition from cigarettes to pipes because they are safer (they really wanted him to quit altogether). We only got out to the midwest to visit my grandparents a couple times a year, and they may have come down here once or twice a year, so I didn't see them often. Still, my grandfather would smoke a pipe often when I'd see him and I quickly associated my grandparents, their home and their car with the smell of pipe tobacco.

Fast forward a number of years. In the 1980s (when I was a teen) it was still common, even in MD, for people to smoke in public and cigarettes were easy to get (even for teens). You could smoke indoors in public areas at this time. The legal age to buy cigarettes in MD was 16, and few places carded for smokes. So, at around 13 I started smoking cigarettes. I loved the smell of my grandfather's pipe and had in the back of my mind that I would smoke a pipe when I was old enough.

While in high school (I don't remember if it was the summer between my junior and senior year, or actually the summer after I graduated) I bought a Dr. Grabow and either Capt Black White or Borkum Riff Whiskey (I can't remember for sure which). I enjoyed it, but only smoked it about a month. First, back then I actually thought I was hiding my smoking from my parents, and it was harder to hide all of the pipe paraphernalia going in and out of their house than it was to hide a pack of cigarettes. Second, people were used to seeing people (even teens) smoke in public, so while no one bothered me over the cigarettes, I got a_ lot_ of funny looks as a teenager smoking a pipe in public and I eventually got a bit self-conscious about it and gave it up.

A few years later while in college in VT I picked up pipe smoking more or less for good at 21 with a Dr Grabow and again, either CWB or BR whiskey, and several weeks later a basket pipe and some nice "Amaretto" bulk from a smoke shop in Burlington. Today, about 22 years later, I have over 60 pipes, and I smoke a lot of different tobaccos. I recently got into OTCs partly due to the praise so many get around here, and partly looking for that old nostalgic smell of my grandfather's pipe (SWR, PA and probably SWR Aro were his blends). My favorite OTCs are CH, PA and SWR, the next I'm trying are SWRA and some more CWB.


----------



## Chris0673 (Aug 20, 2012)

Jeff10236 said:


> Fast forward a number of years. In the 1980s (when I was a teen) it was still common, even in MD, for people to smoke in public and cigarettes were easy to get (even for teens). You could smoke indoors in public areas at this time. The legal age to buy cigarettes in MD was 16, and few places carded for smokes.


Ahhhh yes. The good ole days!


----------



## indigosmoke (Sep 1, 2009)

These guys:















After reading LOTR my senior year in high school (back in the mists of time) I took up the pipe for a while. I picked it back up a few years ago and haven't looked back. Still nothing like smoking a pipe and reading a favorite scene.

_"Gandalf and Pippin came to Merry's room, and there they found Aragorn standing by the bed. "Poor old Merry!" cried Pippin, and he ran to the bedside, for it seemed to him that his friend looked worse, and a greyness was in his face, as if a weight of years of sorrow lay on him; and suddenly a fear seized Pippin that Merry would die.

'Do not be afraid,' said Aragorn. 'I came in time, and I have called him back. He is weary now, and grieved, and he has taken a hurt like the Lady Eowyn, daring to smite that deadly thing. But these evils can be amended, so strong and gay a spirit is in him. His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.'

Then Aragorn laid his hand on Merry's head, and passing his hand gently through the brown curls, he touched the eye lids, and called him by name. And when the fragrance of athelas stole through the room, like the scent of orchards, and of heather in the sunshine full of bees, Merry awoke, and he said:

'I am hungry. What is the time?'

'Past supper-time now,' said Pippin; 'Though I daresay I could bring you something, if they will let me.'

'They will indeed,' said Gandalf. 'And anything else that this Rider of Rohan may desire, if it can be found in Minas Tirith, where his name is in honour.'

'Good!' said Merry. "Then I would like supper first, and after that a pipe.' At that his face clouded. 'No, not a pipe. I don't think I'll smoke again.'

'Why not?' said Pippin.

'Well,' answered Merry slowly. 'He is dead. It has brought it all back to me. He said he was sorry he had never had a chance of talking herb-lore with me. Almost the last thing he ever said. I shan't ever be able to smoke again without thinking of him, and that day, Pippin, when he rode up to Isengard and was so polite.'

'Smoke then, and think of him!' said Aragorn. 'For he was a gentle heart, and a great king and kept his oaths; and he rose out of the shadows to a fair last morning. Though your service to him was brief, it should be a memory glad and honorable to the end of your days.'

Merry smiled. 'Well then,' he said. 'If Strider will provide what is needed, I will smoke and think.'_

Some can read scenes like that and not want to smoke a pipe, but not me!


----------



## Chris0673 (Aug 20, 2012)

indigosmoke said:


> These guys:
> 
> View attachment 44833
> View attachment 44834
> ...


**looks up from lighting his pipe**

I'm sorry...what? :mrgreen:p


----------



## steinr1 (Oct 22, 2010)

I'd been a cigarette and cigar smoker for quite a few years when I started University. Pipes seemed to be the "Collegiate" thing and I took to it like a duck to water. I think I've still got all my pipes from that time, albeit a couple of them have modified stems due to breakage. I haven't snapped a stem since. About 15 or so years of smoking Edgeworth Sliced followed, together with copious cigarettes and cigars. I was still smoking about 60 Players Plain a day. I decided to give up from one day to the next (which was actually a doddle - not necessarily a popular view...) and didn't smoke again for about seven or eight years. On "National No Smoking Day" one year I decided to ostentatiously smoke a cigar. Lovely. Once a nicotine addict, always a nicotine addict. A couple of years later I took up the pipe again to smoke the last pouch of Edgeworth Sliced I had from the old days. It was bloody good. Little did I know that it was pretty much the last pouch in England. Roll on a few years more and here we are. Still missing the Edgeworth...


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

I started at the top, so to speak, in Mincer's Pipe Shop, which is no longer there. The year 1961, my first year at UVa, is interesting, because it's the same year upside down. Certainly an interesting year for me!

http://www.cigarforums.net/forums/vb/general-pipe-forum/296637-mincers-pipe-shop.html


----------



## indigosmoke (Sep 1, 2009)

steinr1 said:


> Still missing the Edgeworth...


I received a gift of Edgeworth from Ultramag a couple of years ago, and my oh my was that a fine smoke. I can see why you miss it. Leads the top of my "oh, if only the would bring this one back" hit parade.


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

steinr1 said:


> Still missing the Edgeworth...


My father smoked Edgeworth Ready-Rubbed in the pound cans. It was a cubed burley, as I recall, and I'm not sure what the "ready-rubbed" was all about, now that I know what "rubbing out" means. Spent rather too much time trying to find an image of it, but the cans are either from the '30s and '40s or fairly recent. The can I remember, from the early '50s and on into the '60s was blue with white stripes, but not quite like the '30s and '40s cans -- I don't think. :ask: Silly me, I had no idea he was smoking something really good! :spy: (Although I understand the "Ready-Rubbed" is unsmokeable junk, and only the Slices are worthy of attention.)


----------



## ezlevor (Oct 29, 2012)

One of my friends mentioned that he smoked a pipe on/off for a few years and that since I got back into cigars it was an easy transition. My local shop is split about 50/50 between pipe and cigars with their own blender. For now, I'm happy with their tobaccos, but I'm sure I'll make the transition into some of the popular stuff that I'll have to order online.


----------



## indigosmoke (Sep 1, 2009)

freestoke said:


> ... and only the Slices are worthy of attention.


Hmmmm.... it _was_ the slices I had.


----------



## Thirston (Feb 2, 2011)

Smoking expensive cigars for 7 years got me curious about what new and different flavors a pipe could deliver. No one I knew smoked a pipe. Just curiosity.


----------

